Figure 3.
To evaluate the stability of the mGFP–hDAT dimers. A, the transporter complexes in a cell were photobleached using a sequence of 10 TOCCSL experiments, and the oligomeric distribution was monitored for 50 min. A, the sketch shows two potential cases: transient interaction of mGFP–hDAT would lead to a rearrangement after photobleaching, resulting in a mixed population of bleached (gray) and unbleached (green) molecules per dimer; in this case, the number of unbleached dyes per dimer would be reduced (left). In contrast, stable interaction would produce either completely bleached or unbleached dimers, without altering the distribution (right). B, dimeric distribution αN at the start of the experiment (white bars), and after 10 consecutive TOCCSL experiments performed every 5 min (gray bars) (n = 37 cells). No change in the dimeric distribution was observed. Error bars show the mean ± S.E.